208 réponses à ce sujet

[David Gaider]

I normally appreciate this argument, but I cannot see how it applies here.

 

If you have enough resources and people to make well over a hundred hours worth of exploration content and ten open-world areas, far exceeding anything the previous games had to offer, but not enough to produce a main storyline that's at least the same length as the previous games then clearly something happened at the planning / resource allocation stage that skewed things in favour of exploration.

 

It's not like it was written in stone that the game had to have 100+ hours of exploration, 10 open-world areas and a relatively light main questline the instant the game was conceived. It was entirely possible to just have less exploration content designers/producers working on the project in the first place and take on an extra cinematic designer instead.

 

It's not "Remove the stuff I don't like", It's "Balance the resources so that the amount of side content doesn't outweigh the main story by such an insane margin". Even as somebody who really liked Inquisition, and the side content, I felt there was simply far too much of it compared to the other elements of the game.

 

There is, however, not one single batch of "resources" that you allocate.

 

There are different people with different skills, and different kinds of content require different people to work on them. One cannot necessarily work on another. The main storyline quests, for instance, are very cinematic-heavy...if you cut content that has no or little cinematics, you can cut to your heart's content and you will not free up any resources for the main storyline. You will have a lot of level designers twiddling their thumbs waiting for someone to work on whatever they've created.

 

That's how it works. We're quite aware of the need to balance our resources -- insofar as whether the team "learned" anything about balancing the amount of exploration content vs. cinematic content, I suppose you'll have to wait and see what Mike and co. do in the years to come. I think they've been pretty up-front about the focus on exploration content, so I suspect you'll see refinement and iteration rather than a complete axis shift on that front...but who knows? DA is sort of the Aliens franchise of the gaming world, in terms of its willingness to redefine itself.

[FieryDove]

There is, however, not one single batch of "resources" that you allocate.

 

There are different people with different skills, and different kinds of content require different people to work on them. One cannot necessarily work on another. The main storyline quests, for instance, are very cinematic-heavy...if you cut content that has no or little cinematics, you can cut to your heart's content and you will not free up any resources for the main storyline. You will have a lot of level designers twiddling their thumbs waiting for someone to work on whatever they've created.

 

That's how it works. We're quite aware of the need to balance our resources -- insofar as whether the team "learned" anything about balancing the amount of exploration content vs. cinematic content, I suppose you'll have to wait and see what Mike and co. do in the years to come.

 

David! (hug)

 

I think people also forgot new engine plus trying to juggle so many platforms. Didn't you folk have to build all the RPG elements from scratch too? All adds up.

[David Gaider]

http://www.gamespot....y/1100-6423362/

Plays like an mmo too. I see a lot of parallels with swtor in terms of design too. There were just too many constraints

 

I think you misunderstand what that article says -- perhaps intentionally, I suppose.

 

Blackfoot was a separate DA game. It was multiplayer-only, but nothing even close to an MMO. The only relation it has to DAI is the techline, as Mark Darrah says in that article -- meaning the underlying technology for the multiplayer gameplay, which both ME3 and DAI used.

[David Gaider]

David! (hug)

 

I think people also forgot new engine plus trying to juggle so many platforms. Didn't you folk have to build all the RPG elements from scratch too? All adds up.

 

Switching to a new engine was the biggest hurdle -- as it always is. Many of the games I've worked on where we've switched to a new engine (such as DAO), that's actually what the majority of the development time was spent doing: getting the underlying tech to simply work, and then figuring out how to make it work like you want it to.

[Fiery Phoenix]

Switching to a new engine was the biggest hurdle -- as it always is. Many of the games I've worked on where we've switched to a new engine (such as DAO), that's actually what the majority of the development time was spent doing: getting the underlying tech to simply work, and then figuring out how to make it work like you want it to.

I don't know if you can answer this, but what does this mean for the new IP and ME: Next? Are you guys also trying to get the engine to work with those games or was working on DA:I enough to figure out the engine in and out?

[Don Lionheart]

There is, however, not one single batch of "resources" that you allocate.

 

There are different people with different skills, and different kinds of content require different people to work on them. One cannot necessarily work on another. The main storyline quests, for instance, are very cinematic-heavy...if you cut content that has no or little cinematics, you can cut to your heart's content and you will not free up any resources for the main storyline. You will have a lot of level designers twiddling their thumbs waiting for someone to work on whatever they've created.

 

That's how it works. We're quite aware of the need to balance our resources -- insofar as whether the team "learned" anything about balancing the amount of exploration content vs. cinematic content, I suppose you'll have to wait and see what Mike and co. do in the years to come.

 

I like that ending bit about "the years to come" because it makes me think that there will be Dragon Age stuff for, well, years to come =D!

 

That said, I think that this makes an interesting point and it's certainly one that may not have been considered by most people.  I do hope that the team has "learned" something, as you put it, because there are always ways to improve a game, even one as amazing as DA:I is.

 

Switching to a new engine was the biggest hurdle -- as it always is. Many of the games I've worked on where we've switched to a new engine (such as DAO), that's actually what the majority of the development time was spent doing: getting the underlying tech to simply work, and then figuring out how to make it work like you want it to.

 

I was very impressed by the use of the Frostbite engine, and I thought the game looked gorgeous.  However, switching to a new engine takes a lot of time, and DA:I only had 3 years in development (that the community is aware of, at least), which is a lifetime now with annual releases of some games, but is not very long in actual time.  Did you guys start the transition to Frostbite sooner than that?  Just the amount of content you managed to fit into DA:I in addition to the new engine was incredibly impressive.

[Cydh]

Switching to a new engine was the biggest hurdle -- as it always is. Many of the games I've worked on where we've switched to a new engine (such as DAO), that's actually what the majority of the development time was spent doing: getting the underlying tech to simply work, and then figuring out how to make it work like you want it to.

 

The real question is, how much of a constraint was the new engine to the Writers? I imagine it was far easier to write knowing the limitations of the previous engine, than to write in the dark, hoping that the dev would be able to somehow make it work? Are there specific parts where you had to completely overhaul part of the story because something was failing somewhere down the pipeline?

 

Or was it your solemn duty to make the life of the editors and devs a nightmare?

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 Here's the thing, though: Dragon Age fans were not playing these games because they loved to wander around wildernesses -- that was not a DA thing before Inquisition.

 

Now, if you want to redesign it a bit to attract Skyrim fans that are into that sort of thing, cool. The issue is that, in Inquisition, that  exploration dwarved the things that the series's original fans were playing for from the beginning, getting away from what the series did best.

 

So, maybe next time those large maps and exploratory areas can be big cities or plot-centric locations that do not feel so divorced from the setting.

 

Just a thought.

[FieryDove]

Same thing happened with Sims 4. New engine and everyone complaining it's not like Sims 3 and to get working on making it that way or they won't be fans anymore. It's not that simple, but once mastered it can/will be even more amazing I'm sure.

 

It's not just that. They went from open world to closed areas again not to mention its once again 32 bit. They really should have gone 64. Once people start getting a zillion expansions/stuff packs/store content even a beast of a system is brought to its knees. Many are upset about lack of family trees too. I just like building houses so am plenty happy to stick to older versions. Sometimes and in this case for me new does not mean improved.

 

To bring this back on topic of dai at least I think the new engine was great for the level creation sections. The terrain is amazing, some areas are just breathtaking. Perhaps in time they can iron out all the other issues. (ex, Hair! Braids for my dwarf please!)

[Ariella]

 Here's the thing, though: Dragon Age fans were not playing these games because they loved to wander around wildernesses -- that was not a DA thing before Inquisition.

 

 

Here's the damned if you do, damned if you don't. People screamed and raged about DA2 being too small, and wanting a bigger more open feel. Bioware listened, and yet here we are.

[Fearsome1]

 

I just like having Mr. Gaider weigh in on stuff!!  I've played Inquisition non-stop since it arrived on release day. There is repetition yes, but I'm not bored yet.

[Ariella]

Exactly! And people hated the city, and now they are complaining "I miss cities" and it's too big, even though they said DA2 was too small and lacked exploration... it's like what the heck do you want?? Lol though I doubt the same people complaining about one thing are now complaining about getting it. It's a matter of trying to please both sides and it's almost impossible.

 

Yuph. Remember how people complained about the color palate in DAO and then when they went with a more vibrant one people screamed blood murder? Or the fact that combat was too slow in DAO and yet when they sped it up it was selling out to the consoles and horrible (I happened to like DA2 combat animation personally. In DAO my character always looked hunched over like she was constipated) 

[CronoDragoon]

If I'm being charitable to the DA2 complaints, it wasn't just size but also copy/paste that was the problem. The same cave recycled for every cave in the game, etc.

[Ariella]

If I'm being charitable to the DA2 complaints, it wasn't just size but also copy/paste that was the problem. The same cave recycled for every cave in the game, etc.

 

That was legitimate, but "why isn't this as open as Skyrim!" was a rallying cry back then too. 

[JeffZero]

DA2 predated Skyrim by eight months, but that just meant it came at a pretty unlucky time. Hype was through the roof the following E3 for a game that was in many ways the antithesis of BioWare's own 2011 offering, and the gaming landscape has never been the same.

[Ariella]

Yeah I read about it, because DA2 was my first DA game and I was reading up on it. Then I played DAI next, and finally DAO just recently. I was shocked at the differences, but adapted.

 

Wait until next Tuesday, it going to get even more fun when well, that other game comes out. If people act the way they did back when DA2 came out, it's going to get ugly fast.

[CronoDragoon]

Yeah I read about it, because DA2 was my first DA game and I was reading up on it. Then I played DAI next, and finally DAO just recently. I was shocked at the differences, but adapted.

 

Interesting. I don't know many people that started with 2.

 

Also, lol @ Gaider saying the DA franchise is like Aliens. Too true, since all the Alien films are good, too. In varying degrees.

[Ariella]

 

Lol the thing is, as David said, it was a new engine so it took time to get to learn and people expect more without understanding it's not that simple. It's like modders. A mod makes a nice mesh for a game like DAI that seemed impossible due to the new engine, suddenly people are demanding more meshes and some beyond what the modder can do. And this modder probably worked many months learning how to make a simple mesh and people who don't know how to do it don't seem to understand that, and expect more.

 

 

 

I'm a Simmer and one day I got invited to do beta testing for SWTOR so I started to look up other BW titles after that, and saw DA2 was just out in stores, so I grabbed it.

 

 

Believe me, I understand. I play on console though I had DA2 and DAO for both PC and Xbox (just don't have the rig for DAI). I've always envied modders, and I've wished more times than I cared to count I could do such a thing (I really wanted to mod an actual romance for Atton into KotOR2). I also have a husband who minored in CS, and he's pretty well explained to me how damn complicated these things can be, and that's just coding infrastructure. 

 

But what I'm getting at with my rather vague comment is another Fantasy game comes out next week, and the last time DA and this other franchise came out at the same time there were declarations that the other game was the death knell of the DA franchise because it was so good and DA2 was so horrible (which ignores the clunky combat, the fact that difficulty scaling was horrible and had to be fixed in a huge DLC/patch, the the couldn't even bother to get the lip flaps right for the localized language...) I'm just waiting to see it again here when the 19th comes out. Sigh. 

 

Back to DA2, though. Truth is, had the game not been rushed, and given more time for polish, I think people would have been singing a bit of a different tune. The story was solid, and the characters were good. Just needed more time and a bit more love.

[JeffZero]

Heh, if the forums erupt as such -- and you're right, they probably will -- I suppose I'll be taking a break until news on the next SP DLC arrives.

(And also, news on that little thing called Mass Effect 4, but yeah.)